# What to do with with dead bodies on Generation Ships **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 14, 2023, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514 "2023-06-14T17:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/41 "2023-06-15T09:10:47Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Note; you could use the same (or similar) technology to increase the human population, so that females need not be burdened with pregnancy and childbirth, and the population thus created could be much more genetically diverse than would be possible if the gene pool only consisted of the passengers and crew of the generation ship. The children would still need to be cared for and educated, although maybe robot nannies could take care of some of that. Or don’t send a generation ship at all, just a ship filled with embryos (or technology capable of creating embryos based on DNA data), and have robot nannies raise the babies when they arrive. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/42 "2023-06-15T09:25:04Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > a ship filled with embryos (or technology capable of creating embryos based on DNA data), and have robot nannies raise the babies when they arrive. This is a good idea in theory, but there are a lot of possible failure modes, some of which I’ve described elsewhere. One possible failure mode is that ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’, and the ‘robot nannies’ might decide to wait until the colony they are building is perfect for their human successors. But the colony never reaches this ideal state, so the robot nannies build their own civilisation with no humans in it. Another failure mode, described by Stephen Baxter in his novel Proxima, includes a single human overseer to make sure the robots behave themselves. However all the robotic systems fail, except for the system that produces human babies. You can guess where the single human survivor obtains his food after that. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/43 "2023-06-15T09:58:42Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > This is a good idea in theory, but there are a lot of possible failure modes, some of which I’ve described elsewhere. That’s why you make the ship self-replicating. It arrives at a system, sets up a colony, and starts launching copies of itself to surrounding star systems. Even assuming a colony failure rate of 99%, my guess that a decent Von Neumann system like that would colonize a significant portion of the galaxy within a few million years, tops. But that’s a bit of a hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/44 "2023-06-15T12:33:28Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > If people are too squeamish for that, use a series of chemical reactions to decompose the corpse into separate masses of carbon, nitrogen, iron, etc. Then recycle those. I was doubtful that the amount of minerals in the human body were worth the effort, but my quick research said 5 to 6 percent of one’s body weight is minerals. That’s 6 to 12 pounds per person depending on their size multiplied by hundreds of deaths over many years. That’s a lot. Oh well, no romantic “burial at sea”. I guess a memorial gathering would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/45 "2023-06-15T12:37:34Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > You can guess where the single human survivor obtains his food after that. And the real shame was, he had nobody to trade dead-baby jokes with. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/46 "2023-06-15T13:00:56Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I was doubtful that the amount of minerals in the human body were worth the effort, but my quick research said 5 to 6 percent of one’s body weight is minerals. Huh, my quick research says that it’s 100%. What do you think the other 94% is? ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/47 "2023-06-15T13:06:23Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > but there are a lot of possible failure modes Like ending up at a planet full of intelligent spiders!! ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/48 "2023-06-15T13:16:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Huh, my quick research says that it’s 100%. What do you think the other 94% is? Water, mostly. Supposedly, about 75% of our body weight is simply water. From Google: " Minerals represent about **5-6 %** of the total body weight. The minerals in human body are also sometimes talked about as elements. Human body is composed of **5 major minerals in 72 trace minerals**. The five major minerals in the human body are calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and magnesium." ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/49 "2023-06-15T13:34:47Z")
And water isn’t a mineral? Regardless of what you call the various substances in a body, we need to keep all of them. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/50 "2023-06-15T14:21:33Z")
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral): Nope, not a mineral. > In [geology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology) and [mineralogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineralogy), a **mineral** or **mineral species** is, broadly speaking, a [solid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid) [substance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_substance) with a fairly well-defined [chemical composition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_composition) and a specific [crystal structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_structure) that occurs naturally in pure form. I agree that one would especially want to minimize the loss of water over time. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/51 "2023-06-15T14:50:28Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > dead bodies and things you won’t need The point is that you may need the nutrients in those dead bodies. If you know the planet you’re landing on is swarming with those nutrients, then you won’t need them at that point. But you’re still going to have needed them through all those generations on the generation ship; so that doesn’t change the original question. And however you dealt with them on the generation ship (I’d lean towards “compost into fertilizer” rather than “eat directly”, due to both health and emotional reasons): by the time you get to the destination planet, that’s how people are used to doing it. Things are going to be weird enough for the first generation landing without also abruptly changing their funeral practices. As far as the first generation boarding the generation ship – if they’re volunteers, presumably they’ll self-select for not being bothered by the idea of being turned into compost to grow their grandkids’ food. If they’re draftees, this would be a sensible thing for whoever decides who’s going on the ship to consider (but I think there’s going to be a mess in any case, if some of the first generation are forced into it.) If they’re simply whoever managed to make it onto the ship in an immediate emergency – what to do with the bodies is going to be one of so many potential social hassles that I think the main issue to start with is going to be just trying to make sure that everybody on the ship doesn’t become a body in short order; especially considering that everyone would have to be starting off in a state of massive trauma about the people who didn’t make it. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/52 "2023-06-15T14:59:28Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Using animals for food is pretty inefficient, so the whole ship would surely be vegetarian. Any animals that may be seen as desirable after a settlement would be carried as frozen embryos. After a few dozen generations, eating animals would be completely alien to people. They wouldn’t have the taste for it or know how to work with them. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/53 "2023-06-15T15:09:56Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I agree that one would especially want to minimize the loss of water over time. I doubt there would be any comets to mine along the way (not that you would be able to slow down enough to harvest them anyway), so I would think it crucial to not loose _any_ water - though some loss to leakage (vapor?) might be inevitable. In fact, once you get up to cruising speed, water management might be the biggest priority given that what you start off with will need to last at least several hundred years. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > If they’re simply whoever managed to make it onto the ship in an immediate emergency – That might make a good Sci-fy novel: Humanity building a generation ship for basic exploration when a sudden tragedy strikes earth and there is a scramble of the hoi polloi to the ship. Chaos ensues. Actually, given generations it could be a series. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/54 "2023-06-15T16:09:37Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > If they’re simply whoever managed to make it onto the ship in an immediate emergency – > > That might make a good Sci-fy novel: Humanity building a generation ship for basic exploration when a sudden tragedy strikes earth and there is a scramble of the hoi polloi to the ship. Chaos ensues. Actually, given generations it could be a series. It would indeed – I suspect somebody’s done at least one of these, though I can’t think of one right at the moment. It would make a lot more than one, written by people with entirely different ideas of how this would work out; and there’d probably be a number of them worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/55 "2023-06-15T18:42:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sure, but then you have to overcome a pretty hefty cannibalism taboo, which is going to be difficult at best. Burying the dead and letting them decompose into the soil may be more effecient than trying to convince a city-sized population to get on board with Soylent Green. If you’re going to put a bunch of people on a ship destined for literal generations in space, I’d suggest you’re already forced to do some fairly heavy psychological screening. Most people will, let’s be honest, completely wig out in such a setting anyway, so some highly advanced vetting will be needed, and people not prone to squeamishness is definitely going to have to be part of the test. I wouldn’t suggest people be asked to gnaw on the body while it’s still warm. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/56 "2023-06-15T18:48:28Z")
Sure, but considering how many psychological stressors the passengers will already be dealing with that are completely unavoidable given the situation, like never seeing the sun again, that it just makes more sense to entirely avoid psychological stressors that aren’t inherent in the situation, like having to eat grandma. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/57 "2023-06-15T18:55:45Z")
Becky Chambers’, Record of a Spaceborn Few in her Wayfarers series uses the concept of composting the dead into flower gardens that are considered hallow and are a place to come remember loved ones. Over time as the plants die, they are moved to the compost systems that are used for food on the ships. Nobody is eating grandma, funeral rites are respected and followed, but nothing has to be lost into space either. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/58 "2023-06-15T18:57:56Z")
In a culture that practices cannibalism “eating grandma” might not be a stressor, in fact, it might be regarded as treating her with respect and honor and be as comforting to such people as our own mourning rituals are to us. Indeed, _failure_ to “eat grandma” might be seen as offensive. [See endocanabalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism) Practices that horrify us have in the past been seen as perfectly acceptable cultural norms and might one day be so again, however repugnant we might find the notion. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/59 "2023-06-15T18:59:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sure, but considering how many psychological stressors the passengers will already be dealing with that are completely unavoidable given the situation, like never seeing the sun again Were we to ever build a GS for real, it would seem to be a huge stressor for kids learning about where they’re at, how they got here and what their parents chose to leave behind - with no say in it. No matter how well you screened the first generation, there will surely be a lot of suicides in subsequent ones. More fertilizer. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514/60 "2023-06-15T19:16:16Z")
Maybe not suicides. Possibly suicidal rebellions. Acting out. Mental illness. All sorts of potential problems that, frankly, we as a planet-bound civilization have little if any experience in and no real understanding of how to effectively deal with the situation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-with-dead-bodies-on-generation-ships/985514.md?page=4)